Tech Review: Quay Financial Planning

AT8’s Mark Loosmore examines Quay Financial Planning’s client care desktop system.

Over the last couple of years we have written about many new systems that have entered the market. These have often boasted about having a complete range of end-to-end functionality and modern user interfaces. We have tried to analyse the truth behind the marketing and focus on where they can deliver real value to advisers’ working practices.

The launch of new systems keeps the market innovating and moving forward, so competitive pressure is to be encouraged. However, creating a truly holistic system with a commercially robust business model and a track record of delivery with integrations to the major product providers and IT solutions is not something that can be achieved overnight. Success that goes beyond the marketing statements takes time and, effort along with a robust financial commitment to deliver on the promises.

With this in mind we were pleased to have the opportunity to review one of the more established systems in the market, the Quay Software client care desktop (CCD) system from Capita Financial Software to see how it was developing and meeting adviser needs. We also wanted to check how it compared to some of its newer rivals.

A relevant challenge

CCD was launched 15 years ago driven by an IFA planning firm, Quay Financial Planning. What is interesting when looking back at the early days of CCD is that it was helping Quay Financial Planning with its move to fee charging and the segmentation of its clients to assist them in this move – an extremely relevant challenge today some 15 years on.

CCD is written on a database application called FileMaker Pro. Quay Software’s approach has brought CCD into some criticism by the technology purists, as the solution is locked into a specific, proprietary route using an application that is widely used throughout the world, but is considered to be for niche markets.

Indeed, there is no doubt this will need to be and, we are told, is being revisited in the short to medium term. However, a big positive from this underpinning technology strategy is that it is based on a flexible database application that has helped ensure it has excellent management information (MI) and search capabilities.

These attributes have supported and enabled the financial planning company’s drive to fee based planning. All data items can be searched and reported upon and actions can be applied as a consequence of these searches.

Many IT companies will claim to support similar functionality but there is usually a manual process required at the end in order to action changes to the data as a consequence of a search not so with CCD. A search of the system for all couples where both partners are over 55, that live within ten miles of the office and have £250,000 of liquid assets can be drawn up quickly with the action easily initiated to change their service level to, say, a ‘diamond’ segment .

Quay Financial planning saw earlier results from this as they transitioned to fees. The strong database capability helped ensure the system could be set up to invoice and track fees. Each client can have a profit and loss statement held against them and this can be used in the segmentation process. Quay found in its own financial planning business that only a small number of clients were actually profitable and so it was able to focus its time on these clients, while targeting other prospects with similar demographics.

Usability

Being written in an older application hasn’t held back the user interface. While it doesn’t have the graphical ‘Wow!’ factor of some consumer systems like MoneyInfo, it has addressed many of the basic usability requirements many other system forget.

Its layout is simple and clear, with straightforward navigation using standard menu bars and tabulation. It keeps a breadcrumb trail visible at all times to ensure the user knows where they are in the system and allow easy movement between functions. In short, the user interface is well thought out, albeit a little dated in style.

Core functions are present and working effectively. Contact management is good and the system has a central factfind along with various sales tools. It also supports automated contract enquiry with links to 21 product providers which is one of the better ranges in the market.

It also uses Easylink to provide automated commission reconciliation. Functions such as commission reconciliation and portfolio valuations are areas where advisers can drive real efficiencies and it is vital that distributors fully investigate the actual (not just promised) capabilities of any potential system suppliers in this area.

CCD has a client area like most back-office solutions that will expose key information to the end client to view. It also allows a client to make changes to a cut down factfind via the client portal too. However, any changes made by the client will not be automatically made to the core database. Instead, the changes are noted in CCD and the adviser is alerted so that they can then decide whether to accept the changes or not.

Synergies

CCD is part of the wider Capita financial software family of products and this brings with it some clear synergies. CCD is interfaced with Webline - the quotes portal - for example. The interface to the portal is well executed on the way out, with the ability to link to multiple portals depending on the selected product, but we were disappointed that the interface is only one way and activity performed in Assureweb, Exweb or Webline isn’t captured in CCD as an audit trail in order to create a seamless solution creation process.

CCD also integrates to the Capita Synaptic family of products that include their traditional product and fund research tool and their more recent Platform comparison tool.

There is a natural desire to source all these applications from a common system and this can have benefits of a consistent user experience, consistent data, and a streamlined process.

In its current format CCD does not fully reach these goals, however, we have been able to preview some of the early developments of a rewrite of the CCD infrastructure being undertaken by Capita and these promise to meet these goals.

If the rewrite can bring this to market in the medium term they could well have a very compelling offering.